DIY Christmas Craft: Tin Can Snowman

This is one of my favorite Christmas crafts from last year; it’s super cute and super easy to make!

If you’re looking for a quick and easy Christmas craft, look no further! This adorable tin can snowman is not only a great way to recycle some leftover tin cans, but it’s a really fun project and it’s fast and simple to put together!

The idea actually came from my husband! His mom made Christmas decorations out of tin cans when he was young, so we decided this would be a great project to try!

DIY Tin Can Snowman

Here’s what you need for this Christmas craft:

3 empty tin cans in varying sizes

paint (white for the body, pink for the cheeks)

buttons (enough for the eyes, nose, mouth, and body)

twigs or thick floral wire for the arms

black felt for the hat

Christmas fabric and embellishments for the scarf

hot glue

paintbrush

Start by painting all of your cans white. I used spray paint and it was quick and covered well, but regular paint with a paintbrush will work just fine too. Be sure to paint the entire outside of the can, including the bottom.

The Head

Start with the smallest can; this will be the head.

I found the two black buttons and the carrot nose button set at Joann’s.

Turn your tin can upside-down so the opening is on the bottom. Using hot glue, attach the buttons for the eyes, nose, and mouth. Once the glue is dry, paint on small pink circles above the mouth to make cheeks.

The Arms

I found thick, brown floral wire which already looked fairly twig-like. But I wanted my snowman’s arms to have “fingers”. I used wire cutters to cut a few bits off the end of the wire, and then used hot glue to re-attach them to make hands.

The Body

The two larger cans are going to be the body of the snowman. The middle-sized can is the upper body and the largest can is the lower body.

Start by adding a few more buttons to the two larger cans for the snowman’s coat. I put three on the middle-sized can and two up near the top of the largest can. Before you start gluing, make sure the openings of the cans face down!

Next drill holes on either side of the middle-sized can for the arms. I was a bit worried I would smush the can by drilling the holes, but if you’re using tin cans, they seem to be strong enough to withstand a bit of pressure from the drill. Don’t worry if the hole you drill is bigger than the arms; you can fill it with hot glue later.

Stick the arms in through the hole and adjust their length as necessary. Reach inside the can and bend the end of the wire flat against the can. Hot glue it in place.

Once the glue is dry, bend the arms outside the can to whatever shape you’d like.

The Hat

To make the hat, cut out two circles from the black felt, one larger one for the brim and one smaller one for the top. (You can also just cut one large circle and then cut the smaller circle out from the inside like I did below.) You also need a rectangle of felt to give the hat it’s height.

Fold up some printer paper into a ring, and glue the rectangle of felt to the outside. This will help the hat keep its shape.

Once you have a ring of felt, glue the top of the hat to the top of the ring, and glue the brim to the bottom.

Putting It All Together

All that’s left is to assemble the tin can snowman, attach the hat, and put a scarf on it!

Attach the hat to the snowman’s head with a bit of hot glue. I glued mine on at a jaunty angle, cuz look how cute that is!

Then glue the tin cans on top of each other with the smallest at the top and the largest at the bottom. Make sure to line up the face and the coat buttons! The hot glue dried sorta yellow-ish, so I painted it with some white paint.

Once the glue (and paint) is dry, cut a long thin rectangle of fabric for the scarf. Wrap the scarf around your tin can snowman’s neck and tie it. The scarf sat weird when I did this (it stood up completely flat against the top can, covering the snowman’s mouth) so I used a few dabs of hot glue to hold it down over the shoulders, giving it a permanent “ruffled” look.

I sewed on a few jingle bells as a little embellishment, and voila! Adorable tin can snowman!

If you’re looking for a few other Christmas crafts, check out these tutorials!

Hi, I'm Jessi! Welcome to Practically Functional, a DIY and crafts blog for everyone! I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience.
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I love this recycle idea! So cute! I’m going to put that on my to do list for next Christmas for sure!

If you are interested in another recycle idea, check out my recycled water/soda bottle wreath. I was going for a Peppermint / Christmas candy theme but I think I ended up with a Peppermint explosion! But that’s okay cuz I love how it turned out! 😀